Universals Archive
A database of proposed crosslinguistic laws and tendencies in grammar across the world’s languages. 2,029 published entries.
253 entries · page 1 of 6
| # | Standardized / Original | Domain | Type | Keywords |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | IF the exponent of vocative is a prefix, THEN this marker has been reanalysed from a 1st person possessor marker on nouns or a 2nd person subject marker on verbs. |
inflection | target < source | case, vocative, prefix, possessor, person, 1st, 2nd |
| 9 | IF in apposition the proper noun usually precedes the common noun, THEN the head noun precedes the attributive noun. IF in apposition the common noun usually precedes the proper noun, THEN, with much better than chance frequency, the attributive noun precedes the head noun. |
syntax | implication | order, apposition, proper name, attributive, genitive |
| 30 | IF there is Suffixaufnahme, THEN there will be NP-internal attributive constituents outside this construction. | inflection, syntax | implication | case, agreement, Suffixaufnahme, attribution<br> |
| 37 | IF Suffixaufnahme is historically preceded by a different construction, THEN one possibility for that construction is to involve a pronoun-like constituent. This constituent may be an indefinite pronoun 'one' which is coreferential with the head and which serves as the immediate head for the attributive nominal; or it may be the definite article of the head. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | case, agreement, Suffixaufnahme, indefinite pronoun, definite article |
| 38 | IF there is Suffixaufnahme both in headed and headless NPs at one time and at some later time there is Suffixaufnahme in only one of the two contexts, THEN that context is headless NPs. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | case, attribution, agreement, Suffixaufnahme, head, ellipsis |
| 39 | IF there is Suffixaufnahme with both preposed and postposed attributives at one time and at some earlier time only one of the two contexts, THEN that context will be postposed attributives. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | case, agreement, Suffixaufnahme, attributive, order |
| 40 | IF there is Suffixaufnahme both in NPs where the attributive and the head are prosodically separated and in NPs where two are prosodically unified, and at some earlier time it had only one of the two contexts, THEN that context is NPs with prosodic separation. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | case, agreement, Suffixaufnahme, prosodic phrasing<br> |
| 41 | IF an attributive nominal has two or more affixes at one time and at an earlier time one of those was not present, THEN it is the outermost one that was missing. | inflection | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | case, agreement, Suffixaufnahme, attributive, affix, order |
| 42 | IF there is Suffixaufnahme at one time and at some later point there is not, THEN one possible successor construction is the possessive adjective. | inflection, syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | case, agreement, Suffixaufnahme, adjective, possessive |
| 43 | Case affixes can be grammaticalized from adpositions only if the noun is not separated from the adposition in the unmarked word order in the NP; i.e., if the unmarked order is either (a) (Modifiers and/or Numerals) N Postposition, or (b) Preposition N (Modifiers and/or Numerals). | inflection, syntax | target < source | case, adposition, preposition, postposition, NP, noun, modifier, numeral, order, grammaticalization |
| 90 | An object agreement marker cannot be formally and semantically entirely distinct from a personal pronoun (in its object form). | inflection, syntax | unconditional | object, agreement, personal pronoun, verb |
| 104 | IF noun-phrase internal agreement (in class) is being lost on demonstratives, THEN adjectives do not, or no longer agree in class; IF it is being lost on adjectives, THEN numerals do not, or no longer agree in class. |
inflection, syntax | implication | adjective, numeral, demonstrative, noun class, agreement |
| 105 | IF adjectives are losing number agreement, THEN they do not, or no longer, have class agreement. | inflection, syntax | implication | adjective, agreement, noun class, number |
| 106 | When class and number agreement is being lost, not all class/number-agreeing adjectives lose it at the same time. | inflection, syntax | unconditional | adjective, noun class, number, agreement |
| 125 | IF basic order is SOV and determining elements precede determined elements in noun phrases, THEN there will be at least some postpositions, which historically derive either from verbs or from nouns. | syntax | implication | order, SOV, noun, determiner, postposition, verb, grammaticalization |
| 130 | IF heads precede/follow dependents in non-derived noun phrases, THEN they will also precede/follow them in action nominalizations. | syntax | mutual implication | nominalization, order |
| 131 | IF an argument retains its sentential head-marking in an action nominalization, THEN the same argument will also retain its sentential dependent-marking. | inflection, syntax | implication | nominalization, head-marking, dependent-marking |
| 138 | IF there are de-verbal case markers others than locatives, THEN there will be de-verbal locative case markers. | inflection | implication | case, locative, grammaticalization, serial verb |
| 185 | When there are analogical changes in the inflectional paradigms of place names, non-local cases (including the nominative) are generally reformed after local cases (such as the dative), rather than the other way round. | inflection | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | place name, nominative case, local case, non-local case, analogical change |
| 187 | IF there are /t/, /d/, and the voiced aspirate /dh/, THEN there must already be the voiceless aspirate /th/. | phonology | implication | aspirate, voice |
| 190 | IF there is a prolative case, THEN there will be an ablative case. IF there is an ablative case, THEN there will be an allative case. IF there is an allative case, THEN there will be a locative case. |
inflection | implication | case system, local case, locative, allative, ablative, prolative |
| 209 | IF there is an opposition of two vowels of the same aperture, THEN there is a corresponding vocalic opposition of a narrower degree of aperture. | phonology | implication | vowel, degree of aperture, narrow |
| 210 | IF there is no differentiation of unrounded vowels according to degree of aperture, THEN there is no such a difference for the rounded vowels. | phonology | implication | rounded, unrounded, vowel, degree of aperture |
| 212 | IF there is a vocalic opposition, THEN there is a consonantal opposition. | phonology | implication | vocalic, consonantal, opposition |
| 218 | IF there are mellow fricatives, THEN there are corresponding strident fricatives. | phonology | implication | mellow, strident, fricative |
| 220 | IF there are converbs with the fundamental meaning of succession, THEN there are converbs with the fundamental meaning of precedence. IF there are converbs with the fundamental meaning of precedence, THEN there are converbs with the fundamental meaning of simultaneity. |
syntax, semantics | implication | converb |
| 224 | IF there is an opposition labials vs. dentals, THEN there is an opposition of nasal vs. oral stops as well. | phonology | implication | labials, dentals, nasal, oral, stop |
| 234 | In times of inflectional expansion, IF there is number inflection, THEN there is also case inflection; and IF there is case inflection, THEN there is also gender inflection. In times of inflectional reduction, IF there is gender inflection, THEN there is also case inflection; and IF there is gender inflection, THEN there is also number inflection. |
inflection | implication | number, case, gender |
| 235 | In phases of inflectional reduction and expansion of the fund of function words, IF there are numerals and/or quantifiers, THEN there are also prepositions; IF there are prepositions, THEN there are also adjectives; and IF there are adjectives, THEN there are also nouns and (personal) verbs. | syntax | implication | word class, numeral, quantifier, preposition, adjective, noun, verb |
| 236 | During inflectional expansion, IF there are cases marking subject, object, and attribute, THEN there are also local and other adverbial cases. During inflectional reduction, IF there are local and other adverbial cases, THEN there are also subject, object, and attributive cases. |
inflection | implication | case, subject, object, attributive, local, adverbial |
| 242 | During inflectional expansion, IF there is a plural, THEN there is also a dual. During inflectional reduction, IF there is a dual, THEN there is also a plural. |
inflection | implication | number, plural, dual |
| 244 | Inflectional systems either have all three of the following properties or none of them: (i) inflectional exponents are intimately joined to the units inflected; (ii) inflectional exponents vary with classes of units to be inflected (i.e. there are coexisting inflection classes); (iii) inflections express several categories cumulatively; (iv) inflectional exponents neutralize some paradigmatic distinctions. | inflection | mutual implication | inflection class, cumulation, syncretism, fusion |
| 262 | IF alignment is predominantly ergative, THEN there tend to be: possessive and affective verbs (verba habendi and verba sentiendi) in syntactic constructions distinct from that of verbs of action; a special affective case; nouns divided into lexical classes; "labile" (or "diffuse") verbs rather than a classification of verbs as transitive and intransitive; an opposition of inclusive and exclusive in the 1st person plural. | inflection, syntax, lexicon | implication | alignment, ergative, verb, affective verb, possessive verb, labile verb, affective case, noun class, personal pronouns, exclusive, inclusive, 1st person, transitivity |
| 265 | IF alignment is predominantly active, THEN there tend to be the following properties as well: the class of inactive nouns is further subdivided by shape categories; the class of active nouns is further subdivided by animacy (person vs. animal); there are singular and plural verbs in suppletive relationship; there are polysemies of nouns based on analogies existing between animal and plant organisms and their functions. | inflection, syntax, lexicon | implication | alignment, active, noun, noun classification, active, inactive, animacy, verbal number, suppletion, polysemy |
| 266 | IF alignment is predominantly active, THEN both nouns and verbs are subdivided into active and inactive classes (animate vs. inanimate, action vs. state), and there is a corresponding distinction of active vs. inactive syntactic constructions, showing a distinction of objects into "near" and "distant" rather than direct and indirect/oblique. | inflection, syntax, lexicon | implication | alignment, active, noun, noun classification, animacy, verb, verb classification, action, state, object, direct, indirect, oblique |
| 284 | IF there are palatoalveolar consonants, THEN there are dental consonants. | phonology | implication | consonant, palatoalveolar, dental |
| 305 | IF there is a three-member passive construction, THEN there will be a two-member passive construction, derived from the three-member construction by simple omission of the agent in an oblique object relation. | syntax | implication | diathesis, passive, oblique object |
| 351 | In a dominant order the object and the verb are juxtaposed, uninterrupted by the subject (i.e., SVO, SOV, VOS, OVS, but not VSO, OSV). | syntax | unconditional | order, verb, object, subject |
| 352 | In a dominant order the subject and the object are juxtaposed, uninterrupted by the verb (i.e., SOV, VOS, VSO, OSV, but not SVO, OVS). | syntax | unconditional | order, verb, object, subject |
| 362 | The extent of “material“ articulation, pertaining in particular to (a) the elaboration of sound systems, (b) the complexity of syllable structures, (c) word length, (d) accentual differentiation (as opposed to not-so-articulated tonal modification), correlates with the extent of “formal“ articulation, pertaining in particular to (a) the differentiation of parts of speech, (b) the elaboration of inflectional and derivational systems, (c) analytic syntax (as opposed to not-so-articulated polysynthesis). | prosodic phonology, inflection, word formation, syntax, lexicon | mutual implication | phoneme system, syllable, word length, accent, tone, word class, polysynthesis |
| 427 | IF any constituent other than anaphoric pronouns agrees in gender and/or number, THEN anaphoric pronouns agree in gender and/or number. | inflection, syntax | implication | agreement, gender, number, anaphoric pronoun |
| 430 | IF gender distinctions appear anywhere else, THEN they will already be there in the 3rd person. | inflection | implication | gender, 3 person |
| 554 | IF there is free variation in Noun Quantifier order depending on the identity of the numeral, THEN one of the two orders is used with a continuous series of numbers beginning with ‘one’, or ‘one’ and the bases of the system are used with one of the orders. IF there is free variation in Noun Quantifier order with a particular numeral ‘x’, THEN the next higher is also in free variation or is in the opposite order to that of ‘x’ with the noun. |
syntax | no genuine implication; rather: provided that | numeral, order, noun, quantitative |
| 559 | When languages with and without articles are in contact, it is more common for languages without an article to innovate one than for languages with an article to abandon it. | syntax | unconditional | article, borrowing |
| 562 | IF an atomic numeral expression is borrowed from one language into another, THEN all higher atomic expressions are borrowed. | lexicon | implication | numeral, borrowing |
| 566 | IF the dual extends to nouns, THEN it also extends to pronouns. | inflection | implication | number, dual, noun, pronoun |
| 573 | IF the definite article is grammaticalized in subject NPs, THEN it is also grammaticalized in direct object NPs. IF the definite article is grammaticalized in direct object NPs, THEN it is also grammaticalized in prepositionally marked NPs. |
inflection, syntax | implicational hierarchy | article, grammaticalization, PP, direct object NP, subject NP |
| 616 | IF PURPLE or PINK or ORANGE or GREY , THEN BROWN. IF BROWN, THEN BLUE. IF BLUE, THEN YELLOW and GREEN. IF YELLOW or GREEN, THEN RED. IF RED, THEN WHITE and BLACK. |
lexicon | implicational hierarchy | colour terms hierarchy |
| 617 | When becoming a nasal or determining the place of articulation of adjacent nasals by assimilation, labial velars behave primarily like velars. | phonology | unconditional | labial, velar, nasal |
| 625 | Distributive-key quantifier words and their ordinary counterparts are not morphologically related. |
morphology | unconditional | quantifier, distributive |